Tabletop Octopus Whirligig

Doe asked how the wind-driven octopus whirligig works, so I’m posting a picture of a work in progress along with a video. This one is a crank-driven tabletop automaton, but the mechanics are the same – a rotating cam progressively displaces extensions of the tentacles below the top of the sea chest.

I’m upping the ante on this one by adding a reciprocating sailor’s hat. Making the cam a wedge, rather than a flat disk, adds vertical movement. As with the outdoor version, the head’s a fence post finial.

My “Menacing Octopus” will look something like this when it’s done. https://vimeo.com/54564005For now, it’s a bunch of parts in a box. :)

I’m not an automata blogger … yet … but I do subscribe to The Automata Blog by Dug North. Dug’s a good friend and I highly recommend it. http://blog.dugnorth.com/

I really like making stuff like this and so I put in my favorite. Later when I get more time I will build one. I am very busy this season hauling food through out Oregon and Washington with not much tine to even to unlock my wood shop and just walk into it. Thanks for posting this what a fun project you have.

I’m down to the “some assembly required” stage. The hardest part was drilling the vertical hole through the finial for the sailor hat pushrod. I turned that job over to my younger brother—he’s a precision machinist who designs and builds wooden clocks. I work to .01 … he works to .0001 :)